NOMINATED FOR THE 2016 ELGIN AWARD
“ugly bags of mostly water” NOMINATED FOR THE 2016 RHYSLING AWARD
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PRAISE FOR DAWN OF THE ALGORITHM
“Beware of naked female cyborgs from the future bearing a toothbrush in one hand and a chainsaw in place of their other hand in this cracking poetry collection from Paris-based poet, Yann Rousselot.”
THE SCIENCE FICTION POETRY ASSOCIATION
“Cynically humorous.”
SABOTAGE REVIEWS
“Words and images ricochet like bullets through the collection, poems exploding onto the page like dynamos.”
GEEKYLIBRARY
“These are poems perfectly fit to capture the emotions, conflict and often comical nature of the 21st century.”
PERIHELION SCIENCE FICTION
“The poems and illustrations are catchy, cute, cynical, yet hopeful, profoundly silly, and altogether human. […] Dawn of the Algorithm is sharp and witty, contemporary and timeless. […] In an age where people are more connected to their iPhones than their emotions, Rousselot takes the reader through the dark side of the human experience and into the light. I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed the trip.”
SIGNUM UNIVERSITY
“Poetry, for most people, is the classical music of the literary world and what genre poetry that does exist, such as rap, is rarely recognized as such. Into this void steps Yann Rousselot’s new collection of sci-fi beat poetry, Dawn of the Algorithm.”
CAUSTIC COVER CRITIC
“In some parallel universe where hip-hop took a decidely more science-fiction/physics/neurobiology-oriented turn than in our sad, grey history, Yann Rousselot’s poetry collection Dawn of the Algorithm would be the lyrics booklet to the most exciting new album of the 21st Century.”
THE WARBLER
“Sometimes, the poems are funny. Elsewhere, they’re laments for the complexities of love. They frequently dabble in the absurd. Mostly, they feel real. They feel like a writer with passion sat down and did what Hemingway talked about: bled onto the page.”
“[T]he language is never trivial. They are playful, witty and sometimes downright funny, despite being basically dystopian and apocalyptic. As someone who styles herself as a bit of a SF nerd, the overt content is delightful, full of superheroes and pop-culture references, most of which I “got”. After his public reading and our conversation, I realized that there was a deeper, most subtle sub-context, which was underlying much of Yann’s writing. And that was one of alienation. A certain sense of wanting to but not quite belonging and trying to figure out one’s place in the world.” – Amazing Stories Magazine
“Poetry, for most people, is the classical music of the literary world and what genre poetry that does exist, such as rap, is rarely recognized as such. Into this void steps Yann Rousselot’s new collection of sci-fi beat poetry, Dawn of the Algorithm. I use the term “beat” not only in reference to the spoken word origin of the collection–Yann wrote and performed much of the material among the Paris Slam poetry community–but also the themes it shares with the work of the Beats, such as dissatisfaction with modern society, liberation of the individual, ecological awareness, and the elevation of pop art.” – Signum Eagle
“Most of the poems in Dawn of the Algorithm are some sort of first-person description of self. Whether it’s a “DEFCON One–calibre rogue AI” that speaks “post-human,” or KITT from television’s Knight Rider, or even a Tyrannosaurus rex, Rousselot gives voice to the voiceless in his persona poems.” – Science Fiction Poetry Association
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BUY ME!
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Dawn of the Algorithm is an illustrated poetry collection about the end of the world. It’s about giants, robots, aliens and dinosaurs; disasters, catastrophes and spectacular cataclysms. By analogy, it is also about rupture: the micro-apocalypses that spark when you throw together love, longing, friendship and loss—what some might call The Dark Side of the human experience.
We cultivate a morbid fascination for the Apocalypse, the foretold End of All Things. The very notion is a vector for self-analysis—a snap judgment of humankind by projecting into the future. What form will it take? Natural selection or pure self-destruction? Which sin of man will cause the downfall of mankind? Who, or what, will survive?
Unsurprisingly, the poems are a tad cynical, but with a dash of hope and often, if not always, a fluorescent silly streak. The collection is visually quite hyperbolic and literally quite offensive, but always with the best intentions. It will provide you with healthy food for thought and a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. As a bonus, it may help to make pop-culture taste less vapid and the Internet less depraved—or more so; it’s all a matter of perspective.
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Sample Artwork
Sample poems: here, here, here, and here.
Goodreads Reviews
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Yann Rousselot 